Thread

Right John, that’s certainly part of it. But really it has to do with who our core audiecne is, web professionals. Though bloggers and a host of others make use of EE, the majority of EE purchasers are web professionals in one way or another and are not looking for a design. Rather they want to integrate their own design.

When you combine this with how easy it is to integrate just about any design, there really isn’t very much demand for templates. Then also take into account that the data structure, and this is a very important point, is likely going to be different from site to site, templates as we currently think of them really do not add a lot of value for the majority of the community.

Its not my intent to discuss this much further. I just wanted to let daskog know we were aware of the issue as presented and wanted to let him know our thoughts on it.

Hee hee, no worries Hitch!

Hi Hitch,

I’m certain its not. Even if it were, we are not interested in getting into the template business first party. Do people want us making templates or furthering EE? I think that’s a really simple call. We have some ideas in mind but its too early to go into details.

I should have made it clearer that I really was just ruminating, not criticizing (obviously I didn’t as Clark Kent over there 😊 felt compelled to come to your defense!!); but thanks for expounding further. 

Hitch

That’s manofsteel to you.  I have just been around these boards long enough that one day I will be able to say “back when I was a young whippersnapper we had to build our templates manually…”

Actually, I am kind of looking forward to that.  Watching a balding Leslie nod off to nap time halfway through his video blogs.  ExpressionEngine updates will come out much slower because the Derek’s will have arthritis.  Fun times.

I have just been around these boards long enough that one day I will be able to say “back when I was a young whippersnapper…”

Pxlated can already say that.  *ducks*

That’s manofsteel to you.  I have just been around these boards long enough that one day I will be able to say “back when I was a young whippersnapper we had to build our templates manually…” <SNIP>

Un-hunh. You know, I have only ONE really big burning question:

How does your Mommy sew your tights, anyway?   😉

Hitch

Based on my experience (small in the CMS world 😉 I remember me some years ago looking to the best CMS/Bloging tools I can get, and with my personal background (graphic designer), I start with the one who had the best looking default templates, EE didn’t came in the first position as you can guess :lol:

I’ve tried a lot of thems, Symphony, typo (ROR), Mambo/Joomla, just to name a fews, EE has the best, so easiest templates system by far for me!

I start with the one who had the best looking default templates

I think many people evaluate EE by by looking at EE’s website themes page and are hugely disappointed. I agree with EE’s philosophy of not providing 1st party templates, but their website does a poor job of explaining that a person can get a theme from anywhere (legally of course) and integrate EE using their great template system. Just a thought, it would be nice if they wrote that at the top of this page.

I have been using Movable Type for many years - still do for a couple of sites and it was a watershed when they added a set of very nicely crafted blog templates to the install pack. This was at the time when MT moved from being a smallish concern with a good fan base (in this respects similar to EE) to a mass user product and a company with huge funding behind it. The people stretching MT to its limits sort of disappeared or joined MT (and disappeared) and the user forums were swamped by masses of new users just starting out and it became increasingly diffcult to get help and share experiences. Bizarrely I think that if Elis Labs included a set of well crafted templates in with the install to make it much easier for everyone to set up an initial website with EE then the software would get much more popular (which might be good for Elis Labs bank balance) but our requests for help with more advanced things might get drowned out! Of course this is only conjecture, but from my point of view I like the individual attention my pathetic cries for help get from the very helpful team and other users in the community here. 

This also give opportunities for other people to set up user support sites for EE templates - which gives me some ideas (oh if only I had the spare time!).

I’ve moved this thread into the EE General discussion forum since the original question was answered and its now turned into a more general discussion about how EllisLab might approach the default template system in the future.

I agree that the default template could use a little “lift”. Though it may not be used, first impressions do count. So why not bring up to 2008 speed (make it “similar” to expressionengine.com).

One thing I think many people actually do use the template for is: a learning tool.
So the template could/should show “best use” of EE tags.

Since EE can do so much more than “mere” blogs, why not offer say 3 basic templates for disection:
- Blog (update current default and keep as THE main default)
- Small Business (Boyinks template comes to mind, since it comes with a manual 😉
- Advanced (Weird Ideas, reverse-relations AJAX, query, PAGES etc.) Least likely to be installed, most likely to be controversially discussed, picked apart and have alternative solutions in Wiki or Forum format.

Knowing that quite likely nobody will use the “exact” templates. But that the EE code behind them it will be used as learning grounds.
So each “template” could have an associated “Manual” describing the features used and reasoning behind them. Even maybe integrate with a Forum topics.

This should give people a direct tangible feel that they are NOT dealing with your standard blogging CMS….

I agree that the default template could use a little “lift”. Though it may not be used, first impressions do count. So why not bring up to 2008 speed (make it “similar” to expressionengine.com).

One thing I think many people actually do use the template for is: a learning tool.
So the template could/should show “best use” of EE tags.

Since EE can do so much more than “mere” blogs, why not offer say 3 basic templates for disection:
- Blog (update current default and keep as THE main default)
- Small Business (Boyinks template comes to mind, since it comes with a manual 😉
- Advanced (Weird Ideas, reverse-relations AJAX, query, PAGES etc.) Least likely to be installed, most likely to be controversially discussed, picked apart and have alternative solutions in Wiki or Forum format.

Knowing that quite likely nobody will use the “exact” templates. But that the EE code behind them it will be used as learning grounds.
So each “template” could have an associated “Manual” describing the features used and reasoning behind them. Even maybe integrate with a Forum topics.

This should give people a direct tangible feel that they are NOT dealing with your standard blogging CMS….

THIS is precisely why I would love the “advanced” version (as proposed above) with a “learner’s permit” manual.  Some of us have advanced enough business requirements to really NEED the power of a CMS like EE, but our expertise is not in coding; we know just enough to know that a lesser CMS will not do…but not enough to instantly be able to understand the integration between the template and the functions. 

Regards,

Hitch

I agree that the default template could use a little “lift”. Though it may not be used, first impressions do count. So why not bring up to 2008 speed (make it “similar” to expressionengine.com).

I have to agree on that and I have the data to back it up 😊

I’m currently migrating our site (custom development) to EE. The migration was decided after a careful evaluation of various products on the market and we felt EE matches our needs best. I’m an IT guy so I could see the underlying power and I understood the argument about templates immediately.

But I had a struggle to demonstrate that EE was appropriate because all the templates look quite dated. “Are you sure this product is still being actively maintained?” is one of the questions I had to address.

Even if Elias does not want to be in the template business (fair enough), I think having a couple of demonstration sites would help boost the sales. For some people, in some sales situations, there is enormous power in a good demo.

—ben

It is a very well known practice for designers to ‘port’ existing templates of other blog/cms systems to other blog/cms systens.
(ex: look at the hemingway template and Kubrick for EE and Kubrick elsewhere)

One of my favorite sites for EE templates is: http://www.nikhedonia.com/notebook/category/templates/
And I just came across this one, mentioned earlier: http://www.eedesign.org/index.php/eed/
And everyone else has mentioned http://www.opendesigns.org/ and http://www.oswd.org/

I agree with Ellis Labs’ stance on the subject. I would rather have a killer CMS with high customizability that lets me create my own templates, versus a killer CMS with little customizability that doesnt let me create my own templates.

It’s just the same when members were inquiring about tutorials for EE. Jambor-EE took the first leap with their tutorial a few months ago, then Boyink! had his turn, which turned out as an amazing opportunity for everyone involved.

I suppose it’s just a matter of time before some of us (or just one of us) takes the initiative to create a resource of templates with base {EE} tags throughout, to give newbs something to learn from.
Who knows?! It just may become a contributing effort!
We could have even have a Google Group for EE Templates?!
Members could submit 2-3 column designs, fixed and variable width layouts too.
And with BlueprintCSS getting more popular everyday, we may have a section using them too!

It all starts with the need - right?

Rather than default templates, there might be a set of default installations that include not only the visual look and feel but also a set of weblogs and categories. As well as being more suited to EE and possibly even useful, this would also help demonstrate that EE is a bit more sophisticated/flexible than other CMSs.

Some installation templates I can think of are Magazine, Store, Web Shop, Non-profit Organization, Personal Organizer, etc.

I’d love to see a slick template set with the default installation, something akin to the looks of the forum templates (but not so hard to modify!)